Des Browne: There were at one stage some concerns that militia had infiltrated Iraqi security forces. The hon. Gentleman and others will know that when General Mohan was in charge of troops in Basra steps were taken to ensure that the majority of recruits to the 14th division, which grew out of the 10th division of the Iraqi army, did not come from the Basra area. The fact that the troops could not be intimidated may well account for the dramatic effect of the deployment of the 14th division to Basra.

Des Browne: I have done just that. As I believe the hon. Gentleman knows, we have entered into a contract in Afghanistan with a civilian supplier. As a result we are on track to move some 300 metric tons of supplies around Afghanistan, thus freeing up Chinook time, and time for the necessary deployment of attack helicopters to support the Chinooks. The arrangement has been very successful, and I am sure that we can build on it.

Gerald Howarth: The Lynx helicopters that are in service with the Army and the Royal Navy are pretty well at the end of their viable lives, much like the Prime Minister's own political position. When will the Prime Minister note the anger of people such as Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart Tootal, who recently resigned from the Army after commanding the Paras in Helmand? When will he stop dithering, and authorise the Secretary of State to make a decision on the 70 Future Lynx aircraft which could make a real difference to our hard-pressed troops? Will the Secretary of State confirm that if they are not ordered, he will find himself with 150 Army helicopters going out of service in 2012 and nothing with which to replace them? What will he say to people who are trying to take up the role vacated by Stuart Tootal?

Bob Ainsworth: The right hon. Gentleman is right that this is taking longer than is ideal. The financial appraisals have thrown up some difficult issues, and we are working them through with a view to taking a decision before the end of the year.

Chris Bryant: The Minister will know that there is a warm welcome for this project not only in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan, but across the whole of south Wales. There are people in my constituency who formerly worked at St. Athan and who are looking forward to the prospect of working there again in the near future, and many of them have important skills. Will the Minister confirm that none of the delay that has so far occurred has been because any of the services is reluctant to work with the other services, because where all the services work together in providing training they can significantly add value?

Bob Ainsworth: All I will say to the hon. Gentleman is that he and his nationalist colleagues ought to reflect upon the size of the defence training capability in Scotland and Wales were they to get their way and form governments in either of those places.

Bob Ainsworth: There is a clear commitment in the Command Paper to look at the disadvantage in terms of school placements that is sometimes caused to the armed forces by the way in which we oblige them to work. We will work with the adjudicator and the admissions code to identify any disadvantage and to deal with it. I agree that it is essential that we try to remove those annoyances, which is why the commitment is in the Command Paper. I will point out the chapter to her if she wishes after questions.

Lindsay Hoyle: My right hon. Friend must be aware that the big issue with recruitment is that we can do better if we have more regiments based in the north-west instead of reducing them, and that the best way of ensuring better retention is to stop the revolving door of going out to theatre, coming back and going straight back out. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we could extend the period in the UK between periods in theatre we would have better morale and retention?

Derek Twigg: I give the hon. Gentleman an absolute assurance that of course that is taken very seriously. It is essential that we have a proper water supply. In fact, when the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) raised these matters with me I checked up with our people and could find no evidence that people were denied water or were unable to access water. We take the matter very seriously indeed.

Des Browne: We addressed this question earlier. As I have made plain, including in my written statement to the House, the number of helicopter hours and the availability of helicopters have increased significantly—by 30 per cent.—and we are taking further steps to increase the fleets from which we will deploy aircraft into Afghanistan. In addition, we are part of a coalition, and the Canadians have taken steps as a consequence of their review to buy six additional Chinooks and eight Griffons, and they are leasing eight Mi-17s in the short term.
	The hon. Gentleman will also be aware that, in co-operation with France, we have engaged in an initiative with the European Union and NATO to increase the deployability of the many hundreds of helicopters that many of our allies have but which are not deployable, either because their crews are not skilled enough to fly them in the environment or because they are not suitably equipped to provide the maximum amount of safety. Those things are going on all the time; the problem is that it takes time to get from where we are to a point where we have further deployable equipment in the operational theatre. Every single day, however, we make a step in the right direction.

James Purnell: We continue to be interested in the proposals around a single benefit system. Indeed, we are taking a major step towards that today by abolishing income support on top of the abolition of incapacity benefit. That will lead to a system that is based essentially around two benefits: jobseeker's allowance and the employment support allowance. In the short term, however, going in the direction that my right hon. Friend suggests would involve either spending hundreds of millions of pounds to take the JSA rate up to the ESA rate, or reducing the benefit levels of disabled people on ESA, which is not something that we are prepared to do. We continue to look at proposals for a single benefit system, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will acknowledge that today's proposals represent an important simplification.

Jennifer Willott: It is good to have the opportunity to talk about welfare reform. I think that all my predecessor Lib Dem spokespeople have done so, given that this is the seventh Green Paper on the subject to be produced in the past 10 years. I thank the Secretary of State for giving us an advance copy of his statement, although I think I learned more from what I saw on television on Friday than I did from today's statement.
	I welcome the emphasis today on helping everyone back into work and the focus on the assumption that many more people are capable of contributing if they are given the right support. It is also good to see that the Department has persuaded the Treasury that a new funding model will be essential if this system is to work. I am also glad to see that there is finally recognition that the benefits system is far too complicated, which is something that the Liberal Democrats have been going on about for a number of years.
	However, I would like to raise a number of concerns with the Secretary of State. The first is that these policies are very centralising, and that individuals do not appear to be at the centre of the reforms, no matter what he says. Every jobseeker is different. Many can easily find themselves a job within a few months and with very little assistance, but for others that simply is not the case. Instead of adopting centralised timetables, we should devolve more discretion to advisers in job centres and employment providers so that they know who is able to get jobs themselves and who will need assistance right from the start, rather than waiting a number of months before support can kick in—and the same should apply to sanctions.
	My second concern is about privatisation in the current economic downturn. We agree that private and voluntary sector organisations should be involved in back-to-work support, but the Government's approach is too centralising and large scale and the regional contracts are far too big for voluntary sector organisations to have much of a role in providing them. That will be exacerbated by the right to bid, as the only organisations with the capacity and resources to put in speculative bids will be big private sector companies rather than voluntary organisations.
	That brings me to my biggest concern, which relates to the economic climate. Under the right to bid, there could be very little state provision left, but if it became apparent that the companies were finding it insufficiently profitable to provide those services or could not afford to run certain ones, there would be problems. Has the Secretary of State looked at the evidence and can he assure us that that will not happen?
	My third concern is the system's complexity. The Green Paper reflects what we have said for a number of years—that the benefit system is too complex—but genuine simplification seems to be on the backburner. Will the Secretary of State provide more detail on what he wants the simplification of the system to achieve and a timetable for doing so? Given that the Conservatives say that the Government have adopted all of their ideas, may I recommend that the Secretary of State implements the Liberal Democrat policy of a single working age benefit?
	Tackling poverty is the next matter of concern. The Green Paper is based on welfare to work—getting people into work as the route out of poverty—but more children with working parents were living in poverty last year than were children with no parents in work. The number of children of working parents living in poverty has risen over in the past three years, whereas the comparable number of children in poverty with parents out of work has fallen. The lesson appears to be that, under this Government, work does not pay. How do the Government plan to tackle that problem? If this is a genuinely cross-departmental initiative, will the tax credit system be taken into account when looking at benefit simplification?
	The final matter I want to raise with the Secretary of State is that of mental health. The Green Paper talks about drugs misusers, but does not mention people with alcohol problems. In fact, more than a million people on incapacity benefit have mental health problems, which is barely mentioned at all. Although we welcome some elements of the Green Paper, I would be grateful for more suggestions about what it will do to help that large group of people. I look forward to the Secretary of State answering my questions and to seeing the legislation that results from the Green Paper.

Peter Lilley: The Secretary of State will not be surprised that I welcome him announcing policies that I originally enunciated ahead of the 1997 election. I congratulate the three people responsible for today's statement: himself for delivering it; David Freud for persuading him to do so; and my hon. Friend the shadow spokesman for his powers of ventriloquism in spelling out the policies that the Secretary of State has enunciated today.
	However, has the Secretary of State committed himself to David Freud's central proposal, which is based on his realisation that getting people into work is good for the workless person and the taxpayer, but that those who find jobs and help people back into work are not rewarded? Will he reward the success of those in the public sector and in the private and voluntary sectors who bid for programmes getting people back into work? Will he pay them by their results? If so, why has he not spelled out how he will deal with the two central problems—parking people who are difficult to get back into work, and creaming off those who are easy to get back into work. Those are the central issues, and he has not even addressed them in his statement.

John Bercow: The right hon. Gentleman could not have put it more powerfully if he had tried. That early intervention is incredibly important. Yes, it involves the child, but it is important to ensure that we have the benefit of the services of multidisciplinary teams. Precisely which representative will be relevant in a particular case will vary from one situation to another, but we need to have speech and language therapists, teachers, classroom assistants and special educational needs co-ordinators as part of the mix. Indeed, health visitors might be needed in certain circumstances, too. Some flexibility in that process is important.
	Reference has already been made to the continuum of services, and I want to underline that we need to ensure that, through effective joint commissioning between education and health services, we commission services that are across the piece. They should be universal services that can be of benefit to all children and young people who need to have their capacity to communicate taught, honed and nurtured. We need targeted services for those who require a little additional help—sometimes only for a short period and sometimes for longer—and specialist services, which are often tailored for the benefit of those with acute and ongoing needs, who will realistically require extensive and specialist provision, including therapy, sometimes for long periods.
	I simply say, in all courtesy, to the Government that I have made recommendations in respect of augmentative and assistive communication—that is to say, for those who require communication aids—and in respect of the requirements of young offenders, about which there is still some anxiety and scepticism. My message to the Government is that in taking this process forward and securing what I hope will be the advantageous implementation of the report's recommendations, we must be sure that we do more than just the easy stuff. We must cater more widely than just for those with relatively minor difficulties and those who need low-dosage intervention, of whom there are large numbers. They are incredibly important, and the Ministers are right to highlight those cases. However, we also have a duty to do more—to do all that is necessary—to bring benefit to those whose needs are the most acute. A child or young person who requires an expensive piece of technological kit in order to have a voice is deeply needy. They might be non-verbal, and in such situations we must stop at nothing to ensure that the appropriate help is provided. We must not fight shy of knowing the scale and incidence of the challenge with which we are confronted.
	In taking forward the pathfinders, we will learn a great deal. There will be five areas involved, and I am grateful to the Government for the fact that they will be funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families or the Department of Health—they can fight about that between themselves—and have a responsibility to assess need, to devise services, to secure the appropriate skilled work force, to put the processes into effect, to monitor the outcomes and to report the results. That means having a work force, to boot, which is why we have recommended that speech, language and communication must be at the heart of all the qualifications leading to the integrated qualifications framework. Qualified teacher status must demand a greater knowledge of, and—to a degree—expertise in, speech, language and communication. It is also right that speech, language and communication should be a core requirement and an elective module of the new master's degree in teaching and learning, on whose introduction I congratulate the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.
	Joint working must be to the fore, but I am sorry to say that at the moment, that principle is honoured more often in the breach than in the observance, especially at the level of strategic planning and priority setting. That is why I have said that we should let each children's trust designate an appointed person to drive forward the pursuit of improved speech, language and communication outcomes. I speak possibly as the voice of cynical experience when I say that I have a sense that if something is everybody's responsibility, ultimately it is no one's responsibility. If we name an individual and give him or her a task, set the benchmark, require the assessment and demand the performance, at least there will be a likelihood of a catalyst for improvement. Certainly, the public would have someone to whom they could properly direct their complaints or representations if success were not achieved.
	Tackling postcode variations is critical. Local variation, local initiation, local social entrepreneurship, and local variety depending on the make-up of one area relative to another are of course valid and necessary. However, we need to make some sort of core offer to children and young people that they can depend upon. They need a certain level and type of service, irrespective of the part of the country in which they happen to live. In that regard, I perhaps risk upsetting the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), but I say that there is a compelling case for the continuation of early-years targets beyond 2011, and for working towards the development of a national indicator on speech, language and communication as the prelude to a public service agreement target post-2011.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have to say that engagement in this review has been the single most stimulating and rewarding endeavour of my 11-year parliamentary life. It is about two things. It is about helping needy, marginalised, vulnerable and sometimes frightened young people, because that is the right and decent thing to do. I have a child who is so affected, and I make no apology for trying to do my best to ensure that other children get the sort of excellent help that my son Oliver is receiving.
	However, this issue is not just or even mainly about compassion or niceness or being decent; it is also about the authentic self-interest of Britain plc, because tackling these problems is relevant to the educational attainment agenda. It is relevant to the greater qualifications agenda, to the acquisition of vocational skills agenda, to the fight against antisocial behaviour agenda, to the improvement of public health agenda, and to the pursuit of the commercial advantage of UK plc in an age in which a job for life is a relic of the past and the premium placed on speech, language and communication in today's knowledge economy is greater than ever. If in my small way, with the assistance of a fantastic advisory group and the support and engagement of parliamentarians throughout the House, I can broker an improvement in services for, and the life chances of, these vulnerable children and young people, I can say that I shall die a happier man—although not, I hope, just yet.

Hilary Armstrong: I too congratulate the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) on his report, which will stimulate a great deal more thinking and many more ideas. In a sense, he finished where I want to begin, with the point that paying attention to this issue is absolutely critical for the future of this country.
	An interesting report was published by the Institute for Public Policy Research last November, entitled, I believe, "Freedom's Orphans". It examined two cohorts of children—we are very good at longitudinal studies in this country—born on a particular day in different years and looked into the differences in their lives. What it showed, among many other things, was that the very skills that people need to get the jobs available these days—skills centred on basic good communication—are frequently not developed. It showed that too many children are growing up without the experience of really good interaction with adults, so they do not acquire the negotiating skills or the communication skills required for them to get what they want. For example, they often do not make eye contact or convey the sort of things that we often take for granted. That means that they are unable to get jobs in call centres or in the service industries—the sort of jobs available for them today.
	That report stimulated my interest in this topic, and I have also had a lifelong interest in trying to improve education. I think that we have too often missed this crucial issue as we have sought to develop educational opportunity for all, trying to give everyone a fair chance in this world. I would have liked to deal with many issues in the Bercow report, but I am going to confine myself to two areas. The first, which is centred on the work force, I shall touch on only briefly.
	The hon. Member for Buckingham is absolutely right to say that we must take far more seriously the point that the whole of the work force must have appropriate training and support in order to tackle these problems with all the children they work with; but we must also try to identify precisely and at an early stage when things are going wrong, and subsequently develop a series of strategies to intervene effectively.
	I was in a primary school a couple of weeks ago, where the teacher identified to me—privately—two children in the class whom she was worried about. Both of them lacked effective communication and language skills. For one of them it was straightforward to see why; for the other it was much more difficult. The teacher was saying, "I don't feel I have the knowledge or understanding to help these two children adequately." I was horrified, because that simply should not happen today. Across the board, attention to the work force is absolutely critical.
	It will not surprise the hon. Member for Buckingham to hear that the second issue that I want to speak about is early identification and intervention. I am absolutely convinced that that can be done much more systematically and rigorously than at present. As we have provided many more children's centres, with access for every family, we must do more than just hope that children are identified: when it is clear that there will not be normal speech, language and communication development in families, we must rigorously ensure that those children are identified and worked with early.
	I have told the House previously that I have taken up again with NCH—soon to change its name—and had the privilege of visiting some of the children's centres in which it is involved in the Northumberland area, including the Ashington children's centre. NCH's briefing for Members highlights its work, which includes employing language development workers to identify at an early age children who have, or are at risk of, speech and language delay or disorder. It offers individual outreach support to families, who will be visited over a six to eight-week period. It is finding that addressing the problem early through such support to the family results in much less reporting to specialist speech and language workers later. By the time such children start school, they are at the same stage as every other child. That is the direction that we need to take.
	As the hon. Gentleman's report says, those in prison have huge communication difficulties, and that is because we failed earlier. Failure in communication skills frequently leads children and young people into lifestyles that they did not start off wanting to get into, but they end up in the juvenile justice system and then in prisons. Once we know that we can do something about that, we have no excuse not to do it. We have programmes that deliver the rigour and sustained activity that will transform children's lives and opportunities. We have no option but to use those intervention programmes to identify children early, and to address speech and language difficulties so that they do not become behavioural and other difficulties as the children grow older.
	I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution, and I also thank my hon. Friend the Minister, because I believe that the Government will get hold of this issue and transform opportunities for millions of children in the future.

Sharon Hodgson: It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and an honour to follow the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), who made a typically thoughtful and considered contribution. I am glad that time has been found for this excellent report to be discussed before we break for the summer recess.
	I must begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) on his report. It is the culmination of a great deal of work, and his expertise on these issues means that it should be treated as an authoritative framework for improving the outcomes of children with speech, language and communication needs—SLCN. As always, his speech was an oratorical tour de force which demonstrated not only a broad range of expertise on this topic, but also an ability to articulate the challenges facing children and parents in a way that commands attention and urges action from those listening. I had the hon. Gentleman's support for my private Member's Bill on special educational needs—SEN—and I am thrilled that it has now received Royal Assent. I know what a powerful advocate he is for those children who face a tougher start in life because of their own unique needs, and I would like to repay some of his support by stating that I will help in whatever way I can to ensure that the recommendations of this report become realities.
	The five areas the report highlights are eminently sensible. I do not wish to make a lengthy contribution; instead, I shall look briefly at each of those five areas in turn, and highlight one or two recommendations that I believe stand out.
	It is clear that more needs to be done to establish the fact that "communication is crucial". There is something of an irony in that point. It is often said in this Chamber that it is the responsibility of those who have a voice to use it on behalf of those who do not. Although we all know that SLCN comes in many different guises and that it is often not directly linked to speech problems, I still think it worth expressing that well-used political mantra today, because to some degree that is what this report calls on the Government to do if we are to make further progress.
	I know from personal experience how difficult things are for a child with SLCN, and the frustrations and hurdles that they must face. Many Members will know from previous debates that my son, Joseph, is severely dyslexic. He did not start to speak until he was three. His problems, and those we have faced in order to try to get his voice heard—as it were—are just one example among millions throughout the country, but they are the ones with which I am most familiar, so I ask Members to forgive me if I use his story as a reference point on occasion.
	There is a strong case to be made, because it should be self-evident that without the ability to communicate clearly, the chances children and adults have to reach their full potential in life may be limited. The numbers of such adults and children are not insignificant; there are places in this country where more than 50 per cent. of pupils have some form of SLCN. More broadly, there are estimated to be more than 1 million children throughout the country with SLCN. That is why the recommendation to establish a communication council should be fully supported by the Government.
	I hope and expect that the opportunity that the report provides to do the things it recommends will not be missed. My attention was drawn to recommendations 5 and 7, which concern the provision of information. I am sure that hon. Members all know by now that I was lucky enough to be drawn second in the ballot for private Members' Bills and that my personal experience drove me to draft a Bill designed to support children with SEN. In my discussions with parents, charities and educational organisations, it became strikingly clear that without available and accessible information the path of progress would always be far more long and winding than is necessary. The consensus on that opinion and the conviction with which it is held make those recommendations stand out as particular priorities. Parents cannot make informed decisions about the education of their children without information, so we have an obligation to provide it if we are serious about raising outcomes for children with SEN and SLCN. I hope that the recommendations on information will be swiftly carried out.
	The case for early intervention is well established, and we know that investment in the early years of a child's education will reap rewards further down the line. Of course, the most important benefactor of those rewards is the child, but it is always worth pointing out to those who fund support services that money laid out early in a child's life can often be saved tenfold in later years. That is why I agree strongly with the charity TreeHouse, which says that there is a strong need for a cost-benefit analysis of effective interventions. I add my full support for each of the recommendations on early intervention. The remit of the Rose review has already been extended to look at the most effective ways of supporting children with dyslexia, and one hopes that there is no insurmountable reason why it could not be extended again to cover SLCN.
	The development of a child is a joint responsibility of the family and the state, which is why it is so important to ensure that services are developed with the family in mind. Thus, I welcome the third section of the report, which also contains recommendations relating to the work force, all of which are sensible not only because of the impact they could have for children with SLCN, but because of the positive impact they could have on tackling the wider challenges facing teachers, who do not feel adequately prepared to identify and then support children with SEN.
	I have raised previously in this House the fact that there is scope for increasing the content on both SLCN and SEN in initial teacher training. Recommendation 23 rightly states that the new masters in teaching and learning should almost certainly have a core module covering SLCN and wider SEN. That would provide a welcome sign that the potential that that masters offers for the ongoing professional development of teachers will not only be realised, but will be of vital benefit to all children.
	So much of our success in working with children comes when people are willing to work together, with the best interests of the child at heart. I am sure that Ministers in the Department for Children, Schools and Families will work closely with those in the Department of Health to try to ensure that no child is allowed to slip through the net. It is key that parents and schools should also work together and communicate with each other as they both monitor the progress of all children, not just those with SLCN and SEN. I know that that is usually the case.
	The last of the five areas into which the report is split focuses on ensuring consistency and equity for families. For too long, the provision for children with SLCN and other SEN has varied wildly depending on where in the country one lives. Joseph received speech and language therapy from when he was 18 months old when we were living in Gateshead. When he was seven, we moved to the London borough of Merton and that vital speech therapy came to an end, because Merton said that he did not need it as his speech fell within the "normal" range. We moved back to Gateshead, and Joseph was reassessed when he was 14 years old. Strangely, Gateshead's authority said that it thought he would benefit from speech therapy. As a parent, it is hard for me to come to terms with the fact that, as a result of my work and my moving around the country, he has lost out on seven years of priceless speech therapy. As a policy maker, I am annoyed and frustrated that this patchwork quilt of provision exists, and I believe it is up to this House to bring that shameful reality to an end.
	The wild variation in experiences, and the supporting figures, should not be perpetuated by a similar variation in provision and action. I was particularly pleased to note recommendation 39, which states that the Government should make available
	"as much data as possible...about the educational attainment of children... with SLCN".
	Not only is educational attainment important; other factors are also significant, including emotional and physical well-being.
	Clarification is required as to which groups the recommendations apply to. For example, one would assume that the report includes deaf and hard-of-hearing children, but that needs to be confirmed, and I hope that the Minister or the hon. Member for Buckingham will do so today.
	The beauty of the report lies in the fact that many of its recommendations appear to be so blindingly obvious. Its strength is in the way that it pulls together the different strands that need attention and spells out a clear and coherent plan for dealing with them. Of course, a strong and persuasive argument can appear to have been obvious all along, but the reader of this report will be left in no doubt as to what needs to be done, and that is thanks to the hon. Gentleman's tireless work. His skill, intelligence and good-natured tenacity have ensured a first-class report, and I congratulate him again on his commitment. I promise him that I shall ensure that not only as many people as possible read this vital report, but that, more importantly, they act upon its recommendations as soon as possible.

Tim Loughton: With respect, I shall not, because the right hon. Lady had longer for her speech than I have for mine, and I do not get injury time for taking interventions.
	I urge the Government to adopt the proposals in the review as comprehensively and as speedily as possible. The subject of speech, language and communication problems, and, more generally, special educational needs among children, has over the years been raised extensively by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, not least by members of my party, and not least by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. Indeed, he set up the commission on special needs in education in December 2005, under the excellent chairmanship of Sir Robert Balchin, who published his report in the autumn of 2007. Clearly, the view is, "If you want an important job done, ask a Conservative Member of this House."
	The statistics on speech, language and communication needs among children are stark. In 2007, about 7 per cent. of five-year-olds entering primary school across England—that represents nearly 40,000 children—had significant difficulties with speech and/or language, but in more disadvantaged areas, about 50 per cent. of children and young people had speech and language skills of a significantly lower level than those of other children of the same age. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) has mentioned the alarming figures for those in the youth justice system who have had difficulties with speech, language and communication. Clearly, we are missing a trick by not investing in prevention in that regard.
	We all welcome the acknowledgement in the review that early intervention is key; many hon. Members have mentioned that, including the right hon. Member for North-West Durham (Hilary Armstrong). Too many children suffer from a postcode lottery in the provision of services, and there is still a shortage of specialist providers. As I pointed out in the Westminster Hall debate held just after the review was launched, we need
	"greater joined-up working between education and health, and on the joint working and ownership of the work force, because speech and language therapists might be employed by health services, local authorities, schools, charities or social enterprises, or might be working privately."—[ Official Report, Westminster Hall, 9 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 17WH.]
	There is a vicious triangle at work. Often, people who come to my surgery with cases in which speech therapy support is required have already gone to their education authority, which has said, "Oh, that is not for us. It is for health." They then go to their primary care trust or hospital and are told again, "Oh no, that is not for us, but for children's or social services." I am sure that other hon. Members have experienced that, too. That is what I call a vicious triangle. The problem does not go away if we pass the buck. The longer we pass the buck, the bigger the problem with that child might become. We need much better joined-up working.
	The DCSF and the Department of Health's joint response to the review is encouraging, and it was good to see the Secretaries of State for both Departments here earlier in this debate. It is essential that schools, health services, health visitors, children's centres, Sure Start and others do more to identify children with speech, language and communication difficulties as early as possible. As we identified in our submission to the review, when it comes to speech, language and communication needs, as with most areas of special education, early intervention is essential. Estimates suggest that some 15 per cent. of children at pre-school level need the early intervention of a speech and language therapist. The work done with those very young children is vital, and can in many cases be relatively short-lived and totally successful.
	In most cases, there seems to be good co-operation between the agencies involved pre-school, and we support the proposal that more work be done through children's centres—an approach being pioneered by the charity I CAN. However, too many parents have reported encountering substantial difficulties with school-related assessment and provision. In particular, they mention two important problems. First, when children at pre-school level are identified as needing help, adequate speech and language therapy assistance is often not available. Secondly, when no identification has been possible pre-school, assessment and help is often difficult to obtain and slow in coming. There is also a problem with the transition between primary and secondary schools.
	Research by Scope revealed that only 22 per cent. of respondents to its survey had been assessed by the age of three, and that local authorities had markedly different policies for the provision of communication aids. About a quarter of respondents did not receive an assessment until they were 16 or older. As a Scope report went on to show, if disabled children and young people are unable to develop their communication skills during childhood, it puts them at a significant disadvantage in adult life. It makes it even more likely that disabled people with communication impairments will be excluded from work, education and social opportunities, and will be unnecessarily dependent on others. Action must be meaningful and sustainable, and there must be follow-up assessments and ongoing monitoring. Not providing that, and not intervening early, is clearly a false economy, as hon. Members on both sides of the House have agreed.
	I should like to mention a point to which the hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Mrs. Hodgson) referred. She has done much on the issue, and I congratulate her on her Bill receiving Royal Assent today. The excellent autism charity, TreeHouse, has called for a proper cost-benefit analysis of effective interventions, and we support that call. It believes that there is a need for an evidence base that details the impact of speech and language therapy on the development of children's communication and language skills, and that helps families to ascertain which interventions work best. TreeHouse makes the important point that parents and carers are the experts on their children, and need to be listened to and supported more. That suggestion was supported by I CAN, which played an important part in the review. Its excellent "Make Chatter Matter" campaign helped to put the issue on the political map in the first place. I am pleased that many of its suggestions have been taken up.
	On speech and language therapy training, there is some evidence that although an adequate number of speech and language therapists are being trained, there are not enough posts available for them. They therefore seek other employment and can often be lost to the profession, which is an obvious waste of resources. That disjunction is likely to be remedied if recommendations on assessment and funding are accepted.
	We believe that the Government need to go further on some aspects of the report, particularly on statementing and special schools. Where there are serious language disorders, or where language problems are part of a child's wider spectrum of special needs, parents too often find that the statementing process is too adversarial and drawn out. In too many cases, after considerable expenditure of time and money, it results in little or no help for their children. We believe that the system needs to be streamlined and made easier for parents to navigate and less adversarial.
	The whole special needs profile system needs to be changed. We recommend that assessment for all special educational needs be undertaken by independent professionals in contracted consortiums, working to objective criteria. The process would be triggered by a professional from education, health or social services, or by a parent assisted by one of the above, and would result in a special needs profile replacing a statement. The profile would be based on clearly defined support categories, and speech, language and communication needs are likely to encompass one or more of those categories.
	We believe that the ideology of inclusion has caused the most serious problems for special needs children and their parents. The loss in the past few years of no fewer than 9,000 special schools places is a disaster that must be remedied. Many children with complex speech, language and communication needs cannot be educated adequately in mainstream schools, but it is clear that those with less complicated needs can thrive in mainstream schools if there is a dedicated unit, staffed by an adequate number of professionals. It is also useful if all staff receive some training on SLCN problems. Will the Minister commit to a moratorium on the closure of special schools, at least until we can get a closer idea about current SEN provision, particularly as it relates to SLCN?
	Most of all, I agree with the point made by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett). We welcome the proposals for giving greater support to parents. Evidence suggests that many parents of children with SLCN feel too often that they have been left without much understanding of their child's needs and how they can assist.
	The report is a good one. We congratulate the Government on commissioning it, and hope that they will enact its recommendations as soon as possible.

Andrew MacKinlay: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I wonder whether you might be able to use your good offices to persuade the Department for Communities and Local Government to release from the Vote Office the Thames Gateway annual report, which was supposed to be published in June. I am told by the Vote Office that it is in the cellars here, but it has not been given the say-so by the Department to release it. It is material to this legislation: section 45 refers to the interface of the Homes And Communities Agency with the urban development corporations. It really is sloppy that the report has not been made available in the Vote Office this afternoon. The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright), looks a bit bewildered; I hope he will use his good offices to get the civil servants to release it pretty damned quick.

Iain Wright: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that point. In this group of amendments, we are keen not to have, in his words, an "edict". We are trying to promote as far as possible, as we have done throughout the Bill's passage, positive partnership relations between the local authority in question and the agency.
	On that point, our intention with regards to the partnership working between the agency and local authorities was made clear with the launch of the new Local Government Association protocol at its conference a couple of weeks ago. I hope that it will reassure the hon. Gentleman to learn that it states:
	"The aim will be to reflect the shared endeavour between councils and central government to secure more and better homes that are both affordable and in places where people want to live, to regenerate and renew our most deprived communities, and to build councils' strategic capability to achieve these ends."
	I suggest that several significant amendments in the other place have reinforced the intention further.
	Lords amendment No. 51 would require the agency to consult
	"such representatives of local government as the HCA considers appropriate about how the HCA pursues its objects"
	and to publish a statement on how it proposes to comply with that requirement.
	Clauses 13 and 14 form an important part of the relationship between central Government, the agency and local authorities and its operation in practice. They cover the Secretary of State's power to make designation orders and of the HCA to act as the local planning authority.
	Legitimate concerns were raised in Committee and in the other place about the wide-ranging powers in part 1, especially whether the agency would "railroad development through"—I use the phrase of the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) in Committee, although I do not agree with it. I hope that hon. Members know that railroading was never the Government's intention. We have always stated that local authorities are best placed to know their areas' needs. I hope that that directly addresses the point that the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) made.

Iain Wright: No, I tend to disagree. What will happen will depend on the local circumstances of the area. It may be that a UDC will not be used, but what I would hope is that what happens comes about as a result of consultation, partnership and negotiation between the local authority, relevant bodies and the agency. The true strength that the provisions in the Bill provide is that flexibility and support, as well as considerable resources, to allow local circumstances to dictate what is needed.
	The other place also asked whether sufficient parliamentary scrutiny could be afforded to any designation order by the negative resolution procedure, which was modelled on previous drafting of legislation, particularly the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993. However, on reflection, the Government believe that it is more appropriate, given the exceptional nature of the case if there were to be a designation order, that each such case should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Therefore, Lords amendments Nos. 202, 207 and 208 require any designation order under clause 13 to be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
	There was significant debate, both in Committee and in the other place, about the HCA's powers to fund unregistered providers to provide low-cost home ownership accommodation. I was very much struck by the argument advanced in Committee by my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford), whom I am delighted to see in his place, namely that the arrangements under the Bill as drafted did not achieve a level playing field with respect to regulatory arrangements for registered and non-registered providers when the agency provides and funds low-cost home ownership.
	To address my right hon. Friend' points, Lords amendments Nos. 33 to 36 help to level that playing field. In particular, Lords amendment No. 33 places a requirement on the HCA to consult the regulator when funding such low-cost home ownership accommodation. That should ensure that the burden of complying with the regulator's standards is not significantly different from the burden of complying with the HCA's contractual requirements. I hope that that move is welcomed by my right hon. Friend, as it certainly has been by key stakeholders such as the National Housing Federation.
	This group of amendments also contains a number of minor and technical amendments, to ensure that the Bill works effectively and to provide consistency and clarity of language. They include amendments that add greater protection to common land, in response to concerns raised in the other place, and the deletion of a number of clauses in part 1 relating to private streets. Following the consideration of points raised in the other place, the Government accepted that those clauses were not needed and that removing them would improve the clarity and workability of the Bill.
	As I mentioned earlier, economic circumstances have changed in a remarkable and dramatic way since the House last considered the Bill in March. The Homes and Communities Agency will provide the flexibility and the strength to cope with changing times, as we aim to increase the supply of housing and to regenerate our communities in a well-planned, well-designed and sustainably responsible way. The amendments improve on what was in the Bill, allowing the agency to work effectively and closely with local government partners and others. I commend them to the House.

Grant Shapps: I thank the Minister for taking on board some of the concerns that were raised in Committee and on Report. First, the design-and-build concept behind the Homes and Communities Agency is important. We had quite a long discussion about that in Committee. It is absolutely appropriate that the quality of house-build, rather than a simple goal of building X million homes by Y, should be a fundamental principle. Houses have to be built to a quality that is of use to their inhabitants.
	I remember speaking in Committee about the concerns in my constituency about the 10,000 new houses being built, 2,000 of which have already been delivered, whose design quality sometimes lets the new inhabitants down dramatically. Some of the problems that we have already seen in those new communities have become clear. I am delighted that the Minister has taken on board some of those concerns and designed an entirely new objective for the Homes and Communities Agency—the so-called fourth objective—which turns out to be design and build. I welcome that development.
	Also to be welcomed is Lords amendment No. 2, which deals with provision for elderly and disabled people. Again, I remember the contributions that my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) made in Committee to a very good-natured discussion on the issue that, at the time, lead to no great result. Everyone agreed that something needed to be done, but nothing was going to be added to the Bill to ensure that objective. I am therefore delighted that it has returned from the other place, a note having been made about design for the elderly and disabled. That is a crucial part of the now amended Bill that is to be welcomed.
	The powers of the Homes and Communities Agency were the subject of discussion not just once or twice, but all the way through the previous stages of the Bill. The agency will clearly be a phenomenally powerful body, with the ability to take on powers from local authorities, to build, to provide planning permission to build, to become the landlord or the managing agent—in fact, to do everything. One wonders why we will even need local authorities or developers in the future if the Homes and Communities Agency ever exercises its powers in that manner.
	I am therefore pleased that there are some measures in the amendments that assist in at least reassuring the House that that is not the intention of the Bill. The Minister assured us in Committee that the Bill was not designed to create a super agency that would use those powers. However, no concessions were made at all in Committee, which suggested that that would be written into the Bill. I am therefore pleased that the Bill has come back from the other place with those amendments.
	It is right that we should all be concerned not to have an agency out there with powers that overstep the mark so that in future, if not today, a chief executive and a Secretary of State or a Housing Minister—perhaps the Minister himself—might use them in a way counter-productive to local democracy. That is the point around which the greatest disagreements still revolve. It is clear to people on the ground that establishing a strong powerful agency, with the capacity, which the HCA still has under the Bill, to build against the wishes of local people and, if it so desires, to fail to take into account local concerns, will, albeit perhaps unintentionally, set the power of the agency against the power of local communities.
	As the Minister knows, that has been the Opposition's overriding concern throughout the passage of the Bill. If we are not careful, we are in danger of passing a Bill that provides too many centralised powers. Some of the amendments address some of those concerns, as did a meeting that I held last week with the new chief executive of the Homes and Communities Agency, Sir Bob Kerslake. He is clear that his remit should be to work in conjunction with local authorities and other bodies in providing housing.
	Again, my concern is with what happens not today or over the next few years, but beyond that. The Bill is still too slanted towards the presumption that powers can be, if not necessarily exercised, then perhaps threatened under the clauses that remain, creating an imbalance between local authorities, other bodies and registered social landlords, and the Homes and Communities Agency. However, I am pleased to see that the Secretary of State must now specifically endorse decisions made by the Homes and Communities Agency, where powers are intended to be taken by the agency. That, too, is a welcome development.
	There are simply too many amendments in the Bill—and even in this group—for me to be able to do them all justice. This brings us to the central concern behind the way in which the amendments have been tabled. The Minister might describe them as "minor" and "technical", and in many cases he might be right, but certainly not in all. The Government have tabled 715 amendments to the Bill since Second Reading—

Grant Shapps: The Minister has kindly corrected me. That is an extraordinary number. Perhaps a couple of new ones have been added at the last minute, which I was unable to count. It is extraordinary that we should now be in the position of needing to approve 313 amendments—I invite the Minister to correct me if I am out by one or two—coming back from the Lords, many of which are included in this important first group dealing with the powers of the Homes and Communities Agency. Had there been more consensus on this matter at an earlier stage, we might have been able to avoid this late rush of 313 amendments from the other place.
	I am pleased, however, that the Minister has referred today to giving way on the so-called list principle. Those of us who served on the Committee will remember that the answer to almost any point put to the Minister—no matter how practical or real the problem involved—was met by the simple objection, "We can't add that to the Bill because there will be a list principle that will be ruined by adding a list of items." Yet, as has already been mentioned, there is now a fourth objective for the Homes and Communities Agency, which further adds to the list. In fairness to the Minister, I am delighted that he has characteristically given way on that simple principle, and conceded that it is possible to improve a Bill by adding to a so-called list of items.
	It is a pity, however, that many of those changes could not be made until the Bill reached the other place. I wonder why the Government had their conversion on the road to Damascus in the other place, and not in Committee in this House. Perhaps the Minister will explain why. Good arguments were being put forward from both sides in Committee, from housing experts on the Back Benches. Their arguments seemed perfect erudite, yet they simply were not accepted by the Minister at the time. However, when they were put forward in the other place and by outside organisations, they suddenly became entirely acceptable. Had we listened to the convincing arguments put forward by hon. Members during the earlier stages of the Bill, we could have improved it much more quickly, but we are now having to consider an enormous number of amendments in a very short time. We should have debated them correctly in the right place and at the right time, and improved the Bill at an earlier stage. I ask the Minister to reflect on that experience.

Iain Wright: I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. As I said at the outset, the current framework provided by planning policy statement 1 and, in particular, PPS3 makes clear that local authorities should deal with planning and design. It is true that landscaping is sometimes an afterthought when it ought to be taken into account at the start of the development process. The HCA will ensure that the Academy for Sustainable Communities can provide the necessary expertise, helping to increase skills and capacity in relation to a range of planning, building and landscape functions. I hope my hon. Friend agrees that that is a positive step.
	The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) described the amendments as encouraging, but made the reasonable point that we should not produce legislation based on the personality of the first chief executive. I do not think that we have done that. I think that we have a very strong first chief executive in Sir Bob Kerslake, but I also think that the framework established by the Bill will ensure that that will continue.
	The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield repeated a point that he had made many times in Committee about the relationship between the HCA and local authorities. I believe that Lords amendment No. 51 goes a long way towards dealing with his concern about local government involvement by ensuring greater transparency and accountability. It sets out a clear framework enabling the agency to consult local government representatives so that they can implement the agenda together. I did not detect any welcome for that provision in his comments, but I am sure that he welcomes it none the less.
	The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire was right to use the phrase nuclear option in relation to designation orders and ensuring that the HCA was the local planning authority. We consider that orders would be made in extremely rare circumstances. The right hon. Gentleman also repeated a direct question that he had asked me in Committee: he asked whether we had any immediate plans to ensure that these powers would be exercised. The short answer is no, as it was in Committee.
	I detected a general welcome for the amendments. I hope that the House will accept them, because I believe that they make it easier for the HCA to improve housing supply and regenerate communities in England in a sustainable and well-designed way.
	 Lords amendment agreed to.
	 Lords amendments Nos. 2 to 64 agreed to [some with Special Entry] .
	After Clause 68

Iain Wright: This group of amendments is related to part 2 of the Bill, which establishes the new social housing regulator. Before I come to the amendments, I would like briefly to update the House on important developments to the regulator since the Bill left us to go to another place following the Third Reading debate in March. First, the regulator has a new name. During the Bill's passage through this House it was known as the office for social tenants and landlordsor Oftenant. Without exception, nobody liked the name. It has now become the Tenant Services Authoritythe TSAwhich better reflects the organisation's core regulatory function of protecting tenants. Secondly, the two senior appointments to the regulator have been made. Anthony Mayer is the first chair and will bring a wealth of experience to the role, given his excellent track record in social housing, local government and the financial sector. Peter Marsh is an excellent choice as first chief executive; his background in the fields of registered social landlords and local authorities will mean that he recognises the need to ensure tenants receive a high-quality service. Finally, the House should be aware of our recent announcement that we would like to see at least two of the positions on the TSA board filled by people with direct experience of being a tenant. Any regulatory system that professes to put tenants at its heart has to give tenants a say at the highest level. With these board appointments, that is precisely what we intend to do.
	I would now like to discuss an issue that has occupied us since the Bill's introduction: cross-domain regulation. As we have made clear from the start, we are fundamentally committed to expanding the regulator's remit to cover local authority housing. This would be consistent with the recommendations set out by Professor Cave in his report, Every Tenant Matters. I believe this commitment became even clearer when the Government's draft legislative programme for the fourth Session was published in May, as it included a community empowerment, housing and economic regeneration Bill that would deliver, among other things, cross-domain regulation.
	However, during the passage of this Bill there has been strong cross-party support in both Houses for taking an enabling power in the current Bill. This would enable us to implement cross-domain regulation through secondary legislation, rather than through the route of a fourth-Session Bill. I am not convinced that this would be a particularly advantageous method of achieving the shared goal we all want. It would not deliver cross-domain regulation any faster, as it will be complicated to draft the provisions whatever legislative route is chosen, and it would limit the opportunity for Parliament to scrutinise what will be an important and complex piece of legislation. However, it is also clear that Parliament has shown its preference. The argument that the regulator's culture would develop and be defined if it only covered RSLs at the outset and there was no commitment in the Bill to include local authority social housing were strongly advanced in Committee and in the other place. On the basis of that strength of feeling, we brought forward an enabling clause on Third Reading in the other place so that the TSA's culture and operating approach would be defined by the commitment to regulate both RSL and council house tenants.
	The power contained in the new clause in Lords amendment No. 75 is unavoidably wide given the range of relevant legislation that will need to be amended. I am somewhat surprised that the other place was content with its broad scope. However, its broad nature is necessary, because it would be counter-productive to Parliament's wishes if we were to forgo the opportunity to include cross-domain in this Bill only to find that we had drafted an enabling clause too tightly. However, Lords amendment No. 203 requires that the power will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure in Parliament, and we intend to conduct a full public consultation on the draft regulations before they are laid before Parliament. This is a significant development, and one that I believe the whole House will welcome. It will mean that council tenants will enjoy the same protections and support from the regulator as housing association tenants without the need for a further Act of Parliament.
	In a similar veinI see that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) is in his placethe Government have always been committed to the development of well-managed and financially viable community land trusts. As I announced in April, we intend to consult later this year on how we can help to develop the community land trust sector further and overcome some of the barriers. We intended to consult at that stage on whether there should be a legal definition of community land trusts, but in view of the cross-party support in both Housesled most eloquently by my hon. Friendwhich strongly urged us to use the opportunities provided in this Bill to help support CLTs still further, we have accelerated this timetable to give a definition of community land trusts. Lords amendments Nos. 66 and 67 define CLTs. In drawing up this definition, we have worked closely with the CLT movement, and I am grateful for its positive and constructive input.
	Part 2 of the Bill concentrates on raising the standards of housing services for tenants of social housing. A key part of achieving this objective is greater tenant empowerment, with better access to meaningful information to hold their provider of housing to account. Lords amendments Nos. 69, 70, 103 and 124 to 127 are about complaints and guidance. It has never been anticipated that the job of the regulator would be to address the bulk of tenants' complaints; that is the responsibility of landlords themselves, through their complaints procedure, and of the housing ombudsman. However, we have also always acknowledged that the TSA needs to be responsive to evidence from tenants and others about systematic failures by a provider, and to use that evidence to trigger regulatory intervention where needed to raise tenants' standards or improve financial viability or governance. Lords amendments Nos. 103 and 124 to 127 amend clauses 190, 212 and 213 to achieve this objective explicitly. They require the TSA to issue guidance specifically relating to complaints about the performance of providers. The guidance must set out the procedure to be followed in making a complaint, the criteria to be used by the regulator in deciding whether to investigate, and the periods within which the regulator will aim to inform complainants of the result of complaints. The TSA will be obliged to consult tenant representatives before issuing this guidance. Lords amendments Nos. 69 and 70 also require it to include in its annual report a general description of the complaints it has received during the year and how it has dealt with them. This would improve transparency and accountability.
	As part of tenant empowerment, we believe passionately that tenants should have the opportunity to be involved in the regulatory function. This is at the heart of part 2 of the Bill, with such measures as the requirement to consult tenant representatives on standards and guidance. I have already mentioned our wish that at least two of the regulator's board members should have experience and direct knowledge of being a tenant. However, we are still keen to go further. Lords amendment No. 71 therefore inserts a new clause in the Bill to ensure that there is a statutory duty on the TSA to promote awareness of its functions among tenants and, where appropriate, to consult or involve them in the exercise of its functions. The new clause also requires the regulator to publish a statement describing how it will fulfil these duties. These additional statutory responsibilities have been warmly welcomed by key stakeholders, including the National Consumer Council, the Tenant Participation Advisory Service and the National Federation of ALMOs.
	Debate in both Houses on part 2 of the Bill rightly concentrated on the appropriate balance to be struck between the wish to increase tenants' standards, allowing the regulator appropriate powers to raise those standards and the fact that registered social landlords are independent bodies with responsibility for managing their own businesses. I have been aware at all stages of the Bill's passage of concerns regarding regulatory creep or the passporting of policies from the Secretary of State to registered providers. The regulator must minimise interference and not misuse its powers, and it must act on the basis of evidence and of real need. With these broad aims in mind, we have responded to concerns that the major enforcement powers should be exercised only in the event of serious problems. Accordingly, Lords amendments Nos. 141, 142, 147 and 155 to 162 amend the regulator's enforcement powers of management transfer, transfer of land, amalgamation, restrictions on dealings and removal or suspension of an officer. These enforcement powers could only ever be used after an inquiry, and their use would also be subject to the various other protections in the Bill against disproportionate regulatory intervention. Nevertheless, these amendments have provided further reassurance by removing so-called breach of standards as grounds for use of these enforcement powers. We have also required that the regulator must obtain consent from the Secretary of State before using them.
	In addition, we have addressed the concerns expressed in Committee by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) that the fees set by the new regulator might be excessive. With Lords amendment No. 76, the Bill now requires the TSA to seek the Secretary of State's agreement to the principles on which fees are set. That is a move from the original process, whereby the Bill required the regulator to consult the Secretary of State on those principles.
	Lords amendments Nos. 108 to 119 relate to the inspection of registered providers. The Audit Commission inspects the overall management performance of all large housing associations over a certain period, and that has helped the overall and broad increase in standards, but given the new framework, in which investment and regulatory functions are being split, with the latter concerned with risk-based approaches, things can be done differently. Unlike the somewhat mechanical and cyclical current system, whereby inspections take place in a very similar way regardless of the risk across providers, the regulator will determine when an inspection is needed and what its scope should be. The aim is specifically to allow the regulator to pick up on things such as serious concerns about a provider's performance as a result of information it collects or concerns raised by tenants and others about a specific estate.
	Lords amendment No. 108 requires that the TSA must engage the Audit Commission to conduct inspections related to housing management functionson standardsunder clause 191. We do not wish the Bill to give rise to a plethora of different inspectorates, as we believe that would be unhelpful, confusing and counter-productive. However, other bodies, such as a major accountancy firm, for example, may be used to investigate governance or financial concerns, or anything that does not come under clause 191.
	We have also responded to concerns raised in the Commons Committee stage about the disposal consents regime. Registered social landlords are currently required to seek the Housing Corporation's consent for the disposal of any land. Lords amendment No. 89 ensures that where a non-profit registered provider wishes to sell a home that is let under a secure tenancy, it can do so only to another non-profit registered provider. Some of the protections of a secure tenancy rely on the status of a landlord as a public sector landlord or registered social landlordor non-profit registered provider, as they will be known under the Bill. We do not wish to see a home let under a secure tenancy transferred to a non-profit making registered provider, as that would be contrary to this part of the Bill's philosophy of protecting social housing tenants. The amendment makes that clear by explicitly prohibiting such a disposal. Lords amendments Nos. 90, 95, 96, 101 and 102 would ensure that disposals need only the regulator's consent for social housing. Disposals of land not including social housing will not require the TSA's consent.
	Much like the group of amendments on part 1, this group also contains a number of minor and technical amendments designed to ensure that the Bill's clauses work properly in practice. For example, the group includes amendments to restrict the TSA's information-sharing powers, in response to concerns raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Lords amendment No. 78 arises directly from concerns raised in Committee stage by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire that a requirement of the High Court to be the arbiter of an appeal against the decision of the regulator in respect of registration or deregistration would be, Overkill and extortionately expensiveI think that that is a direct quote. I agreed in Committee to go away and look at the matter, and we therefore tabled an amendment in the other place to see whether there could be a viable first-tier tribunal route. We see advantages in terms of lower costs and a reduced burden for smaller registered providers. The amendment therefore allows the Secretary of State, by order, to transfer the functions to the first-tier tribunal.
	I apologise to the House for taking some time in addressing the amendments in part 2 of the Bill. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran), who touched on this in her intervention, I hope that the House will agree that they go a significant way to improving the Bill. They are an important part of the Bill, because they allow us to achieve our objectives: giving all social tenants more choice and a greater say over how their homes are managed; eliminating unnecessary regulation and bureaucracy; protecting public investment; and, crucially, improving standards for tenants. I commend the amendments to the House.

Nick Raynsford: I will not debate the adequacy of Report stage, given the large number of amendments. I have expressed a view elsewhere on that subject and I alluded to it earlier in our proceedings this evening. I was simply correcting the implication that we had the amendments only at this late stage, because much of the work was done at an earlier stage. I welcome that because the Bill as originally drafted had defects, which I outlined on Second Reading and in Committee, and I welcome the positive response of my hon. Friend the Minister who listened and considered carefully, and who introduced amendments.
	It is important, given that the National Housing Federation has been referred to, to put on the record the comments made by David Orr, chief executive of the federation, who wrote in this week's  Inside Housing:
	The fact that ministers were prepared to alter the bill, which is due to become law within the next few days, shows them in a very positive light. It proves they are willing to listen and, where appropriate, change their minds.
	I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for showing exactly those characteristics in the way in which the Bill has been improved.
	I particularly welcome the further change in respect of the anxieties among registered social landlords that they could technically find themselves subject to enforcement proceedings by the new authority simply because of a failure to meet a standard. The possibility that a transfer of land or amalgamation or transfer of management powers could be justified simply on the basis of a failure to meet a particular standard has now been removed by the amendment to which my hon. Friend the Minister referred earlier, so there is a further safeguard there.
	My main concern is that a new authority is coming into existenceI welcome the change of name, as the new one is much better than the previous onewith considerable expectation on it. I share the view about the competence of the new chairman and the new chief executive. Anthony Mayer was, of course, a distinguished former chief executive of the Housing Corporation, so he is very familiar with the processes of overseeing the work of housing associations. I am sure that he will bring to his new role as chairman of the authority considerable insight, expertise and acumen, which will benefit it greatly. Peter Marsh, the deputy chief executive of the Housing Corporation, comes in with similar expertise as the new chief executive.
	My worry is that the new authority will be expected to do an enormous amount in a relatively short period of time. Not only will it have to create the new regulatory regime for housing associations but it will, perfectly properly, have to extend that to cover local authorities and arm's length management organisations, too. That is a good objective that also imposes additional burdens. It will have to put in place complex procedures for ensuring that tenants are empowered, engaged and consulted on the procedures. At the same time, it will have to pay heedthis will be a strong priority in the current market circumstancesto the need to ensure the viability of social housing providers, who might well be under a certain pressure because of the impact of the credit crunch.
	We know from the story of the Ujima housing association at the end of last year and the beginning of this year how extremely important it is to have an effective regulatory regime that can intervene quickly and effectively to reassure lenders and tenants when there has been possible mismanagement or a failure by a registered social landlord to maintain proper standards and when, as a consequence, there is a risk of those tenants losing their homes or of the association going into insolvency. In that situation it is clearly necessary for the new regulator to act quickly, decisively and effectively. I believe that the powers created in legislation enable that to happen.
	Inevitably, there is a tension between acting swiftly and effectively and ensuring a proper consultation and opportunity for everyone to have their say, including the body concerned and its tenants. In its early months, the new authority will face some serious challenges in ensuring that it has effective machinery in place that will command the confidence of the lenders and ensure the integrity of social housing providers while, at the same time, putting in place all the other procedures for effective tenant engagement and responsiveness to tenant aspirations.
	I hope that we have an implementation timetable that will ensure that all those tasks can be done in an orderly but effective manner. It would be a tragedy for social housing if the new procedures were not introduced effectively or if there was any possibility that individual cases that caused concern might fall through the net. I do not want to exaggerate the risk, although there has been evidence in the past few days of another registered social landlord being brought under supervision because of concerns about the way its affairs have been managed. This is a germane issue and I hope that the Minister will give considerable attention once the Bill is an Act to ensuring that the implementation procedure is carried forward in a way that enables the authority to meet its considerable responsibilities effectively.

Andrew Love: Although I agree in principle that a provision in the Bill will assist us, the hon. Gentleman might consider the experience of the Co-operative movement over a long period. The definition of a co-operative was written into law, but it was not much good in assisting the movement in obtaining the finance it wanted.

Daniel Rogerson: I bow to the hon. Gentleman's experience. He makes an important clarification of the situation we face with regard to community land trusts.
	In the other place, my noble Friends raised issues about qualifying disclosure, which is a welcome change to the Bill, so that we can be confident that information is passed on only when absolutely necessary. Of course, discs have gone astray in transit in other circumstances, but I am sure it will not happen again in future.
	As the Minister said, there have been clarifications about the disposal of land. The process should not necessarily be subject to the same regulation as social housing and should allow registered social landlords to behave in a way that better furthers their agenda to deliver affordable housing. I welcome the fact that under amendment No. 203, Parliament will have a further chance to look through the affirmative procedure at the enabling powers to which the Minister referred.
	Having had the chance to look at the Bill only at a late stage I am in a happy position, because we seem to be moving towards a measure that everybody is a little happier about. The Minister said that we want a regulator who acts in the interests of tenants and not necessarily in the interests of the policy objectives of the Government of the day. If the amendments take us closer to an organisationwhat will now be called a TSAthat very much acts in the interests of tenants, the Liberal Democrats will be much happier when that lies at the heart of the Bill.

Iain Wright: Lords Amendments Nos. 169 to 171 address the concerns that Members of both Houses raised about the adequacy of tenant ballots on stock transfer. The issue was raised on Report by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), who mentioned the potential lack of objectivity in the information provided to tenants when stock transfer was proposed, both in his constituency and in other areas. The issue was also mentioned in the other place by my noble Friend Lord Whitty, who reiterated points about imbalance and the timeliness of information. I resolved to have a closer look at the issue on Report; that was the origin of Lords amendments Nos. 169 to 171. They would require the Secretary of Stateor Welsh Ministers in relation to Walesto publish guidance on the consultation process with tenants and the holding of ballots prior to the possible transfer of council housing stock to registered providers. The amendments also require local authorities to have regard to that guidance.
	I am keen to put those requirements into the Bill to reflect the Government's commitment to ensuring that tenants are properly informed about and involved in issues to do with the future ownership of their homes. The amendments will provide a safeguard in circumstances where there is considerable cynicism and scepticism about the willingness to involve tenants effectively or to have due regard to the view of the majority. I hope that the amendments will be welcomed by the whole House.
	I turn to the amendments relating to family intervention tenancies. The House will recall that such tenancies are a useful tool to allow families showing antisocial behaviour to be offered behaviour support services to tackle directly the root causes of such inappropriate and thoughtless behaviour. In our Committee considerations, the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) moved amendments to tighten up the general reference to the phrase behaviour support services and where they might be applied. The other place expressed similar concern with the definition of behaviour support services, particularly about whether it might be too vague. It also thought that there was a risk of families giving up secure or assured tenancies to receive light-touch or irrelevant support services that would not give the family the skills to sustain a tenancy. The other place also echoed the anxiety expressed by Shelter over whether further clarification of the circumstances in which family intervention tenancies could be used was needed.
	I am keen to ensure that such family intervention tenancies and related behaviour support services are relevant and effective. I agree with the other place that additional safeguards should be put in place when they are sensible and do not unduly compromise the flexibility of projects to carry out their activities. Lords amendments Nos. 177 to 180 and 185 to 189 therefore ensure that the behaviour support services provided under the family intervention tenancythe FITbe such services as are identified in the behaviour support agreement between the tenant, landlord and local housing authority. Behaviour support agreements set out clearly what support will be offered and by whom, and what in return is expected from those families. Before a FIT is entered into, the tenant must be served with a notice that includes those matters set out in the Billfor example, the reasons for offering the tenancy, the security of tenure of the new tenancy and a statement that the tenant is not obliged to accept the offer.
	Clause 296 provides for a regulation-making power that would enable the Secretary of State to change, add to or remove the contents of the FIT notice. In the light of recommendations from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the importance of the contents of the FIT notice, the Government tabled Lords amendments Nos. 174, 175, 184 and 185, so that any amendment or repeal of the required contents of the notice would be by affirmative order.
	I now turn to the issue of tolerated trespassers, which the House will recall occupied the House during all stages of the Bill's passage. On Report we amended the Bill to ensure that tolerated trespassers would not be created in future so that people would remain tenants until they left the property or were evicted. Part 2 of schedule 10 will restore tenancy status to existing tolerated trespassers by granting a new tenancy from the date that the provisions come into force on the same terms and conditions as the original tenancy. These provisions have been widely welcomed outside the House.
	In response to concerns raised in the other place, Lords amendment No. 250 was tabled to address the position of tolerated trespassers who have transferred to a new landlord. The amendment includes a power to provide by order that a new tenancy will arise wherever there has been a change in landlord since the former tenant became a tolerated trespasser. It also provides for the order to set out the details as to how this would work. I would like to put the House on notice that it is the Government's intention that those should be kept as close as possible to the existing provisions for new tenancies, as in schedule 11.
	This group also contains amendments to remedy the declaration of incompatibility in respect of section 185(4) of the Housing Act 1996. I am pleased to see in his place my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love), who tabled amendments relating to this issue in Committee. I gave a commitment in Committee that the Government would bring forward a remedy as soon as possible, and I would like to take this opportunity to say that we regret the length of time that it has taken to develop a remedy in this particular case. The amendments make changes to the homelessness legislation across the UK. This is a complex area of law, but in summary, the issue at stake is what help British citizens whose household includes members with different immigration status should get if they become homeless. The amendments will ensure that in future, households in those circumstances will be provided with suitable housing, while continuing to ensure that people from abroad with no claim to UK public resources cannot confer entitlement to long-term social housing.
	The amendments amend the 1996 Act, the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and other provisions so that the current requirement that local housing authorities in England, Wales and Scotland, and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, must disregard ineligible household members when considering whether an eligible housing applicant is homeless or has a priority need for accommodation will no longer apply to applicants who are British citizens, European economic area nationals or Commonwealth citizens with the right of abode in the UK. However, where an applicant who is a British citizen, an EEA national or a Commonwealth citizen with a right of abode in the UK is owed a main homelessness duty only because homelessness or priority need is conveyed to him by an ineligible member of his household who requires leave to stay and does not have it, or has leave but with a condition of no recourse to public fundsreferred to in the amendments as a restricted personthe local authority will be required, so far as is practical, to discharge the homelessness duty by arranging an offer of other accommodation in the private rented sector.

Grant Shapps: Following the interventions that the Under-Secretary has just taken, I wonder whether, in his current reflective state, he might think about what happens to someone from one of the A10 accession countries to the European Union who was here illegally and did not have recourse to public funds. I am reminded of a visit to the Upper Room at St. Saviour's in Hammersmith last week. Its primary concern is a large group of people from the A10 countries who would have no recourse to public funds, and would presumably fall within the consideration that the Under-Secretary is now giving to the subject.

Stewart Jackson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. However, other hon. Members and I previously made the point that none of us had a vested interest in anything but clear, transparent and democratic debate and discussion before large groups of tenants make decisions. I speak largely from my experience, and I know that my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Peterborough supported the tenants' decisions. A proper debate, discussion and ballot took place, and I believe that the right decision was made to transfer the stock. We therefore have no objection to the Government's change of heart, other than to be slightly cynical about the reasons for it, especially as in the letter of 17 July the Under-Secretary dismisses the need for it, but states that he was required to take a closer look. There is, therefore, some confusion, and he may wish to comment on that. However, it is important to regularise the procedures for stock transfer ballots. That is the right way to give the process some support and integrity.
	It is important to support the amendment that deals with family intervention tenancies, because it is about supporting local autonomy, among tenants, landlords and local housing authorities, in respect of support contracts. We certainly believe that on some occasions it is appropriate to go down that avenue, in order to reduce the scourge of antisocial behaviour and the massive impact that a small group of families can have on the quality of life in a local estate. Anything practical and appropriate to prevent that is to be supported.
	Again, however, having 717 amendments to the Bill since Second Reading does not make for particularly good scrutiny, as my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) and the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) have pointed out. We could have had more time to debate the issue on Report, but we went off on something of a tangent, discussing the minutiae of the housing revenue account and its funding. It bears repetition that that is not a satisfactory situation.
	On the third issue that the Minister mentioned, about eligibility for housing assistance, the point has been well made by both the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) and the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) that the decision the Government have come to with the relevant amendmenttheir prognosticationhas taken a significant amount of time.
	We should remember that professionals in housing authorities at the local level regularly have to deal with such issues. In London boroughs in particular, as well as in areas such as mine in the east of England, including Boston, Breckland, King's Lynn and Peterborough, the problem is an everyday issue, and a resource-intensive one, too. Housing officers are being asked to make value judgments that have a significant effect on families who are vulnerable for various reasons. I have dealt with a significant number of families who are, frankly, at the end of their tether, not just because of housing but because of other areas of public provision, and who are looked after under the auspices of the Red Cross.
	My plea to the Minister is to think carefully about how he proceeds, particularly given the pertinent point made by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich that we might still be in some difficulty, notwithstanding the final paragraph of the Minister's letter, over the suitability and reasonableness of the accommodation offered in the private sector and the ability of the family or families to accept the offer. The proposal is a sticking plaster; it is not a panacea. We congratulate the Minister on trying to regularise the situation and clarify the discrepancy between the two pieces of legislation and the European convention on human rights, but that is not the end of the road, nor is it a definitive resolution of the issue.
	On tolerated trespassers, I commend the Minister for having listened to key stakeholders in the housing sector, including Shelter. We certainly support the Government on that subject. In general, despite one caveata slightly partisan caveat, I admitabout tenancy ballots, we support the amendments in the group.

Iain Wright: I disagree with the hon. Gentleman's point. I have to say that on Report and elsewhere, my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) made some excellent points about registered social landlords. I have pointed out on several occasionsfrom the Dispatch Box and elsewherethat local authorities have a role to play in their area's housing. They provide a strategic assessment of what housing is required in the locality. Where it is appropriate and provides value for money for the taxpayer, local authorities have a direct role in delivery. The Bill will help that to happen and will remove some of the disincentives acting on local authorities to provide housing. However, the hon. Gentleman will know what my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich can articulate far more eloquently than I can: registered social landlords can lever in private money that can make a real difference in providing decent homes and much needed investment for social housing. That investment raises the standard of housing for tenants who are often the most vulnerable, which should be welcomed throughout the House. Since 1997, we have seen considerableindeed, unprecedentedlevels of investment in social housing, largely as a result of the ability of registered social landlords to lever in such investment. I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman would welcome that.

Iain Wright: No, I disagree. All local authorities can choose models that are appropriate to their circumstances, whether it be stock transfer, retention of council housing stock or an arm's length management organisation. We have provided the flexibility to allow authorities to decide locally what is needed in the area. I have ministerial responsibility for ALMOs, which are a fantastic model. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the tremendous work of ALMOs in Newcastle upon Tyne, for example. Various models are in place for various circumstances, and that is appropriate.
	On remedying the incompatibility of homelessness legislation, I understand the comments of some Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love). Time and again, however, I return to the balancethere is onebetween remedying that incompatibility, providing fairness but firmness in immigration policy, and ensuring value for money for the UK taxpayer. We have been discussing social housingparticularly council housingwhich is a valuable asset for the country. We need a lot more of it, and we need to ensure that the remedy provides the appropriate balance between the various competing and often conflicting concerns.

Iain Wright: We come to the final group, which is made up of technical and minor amendments. I want to draw the House's attention to several of them, not least because the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield always smiles when I mention the phrase minor and technical.
	Lords amendments Nos. 206, 210, 213 and 214 give effect to a recommendation made by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in its report on the Housing and Regeneration Bill. The recommendation relates to the power provided by clause 319 to make consequential amendments. Our original intention was that all orders made using the power should be subject to the affirmative procedure. However, the Committee's view was that that procedure was only necessary when an Act was being amended. We agreed with the Committee's conclusion and the amendments will implement it.
	Lords amendments Nos. 216 and 219 make it clear that orders made under part 4 of the Bill can extend to the whole of the United Kingdom. By amending the Bill in that way, the necessary consequential or transitional provisions can be drafted to achieve their intended effect.
	Lords amendments Nos. 217 and 218 relate to the territorial extent of the Bill. Generally, as the House will be aware, the Bill extends to England and Wales. However, some of the consequential amendments made under the Bill will amend legislation that also extends to Scotland. The amendments will ensure that these consequential amendments apply only in England and Wales. I hope that the House will be content with the amendments. Although they are minor, they are crucial to ensuring that the Bill works in practice.
	All that is left for me to do now is wish my daughter Hattie a very happy sixth birthday. [Hon. Members: Hear, hear.] I am grateful to the House for that reaction.

Andrew George: I rise to present two petitions, the first of which concerns a matter that shocked the local community in west Cornwall. The community opposes the proposed closure of Penlowarth, the Penzance tax office, as it thinks the closure would be barmy, would lose more money than it would gain, would result in the loss of some of the most experienced, capable employees and would contradict the Government's claims that they are supporting the economic regeneration of the UK's poorest region.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of those concerned about the closure of local HMRC offices in Cornwall.
	Declares that they are concerned about cuts to public services, particularly the proposed closure of the HMRC offices.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges HM Treasury to reconsider the decision to close local HMRC office in Cornwall, which provide an excellent service to local people.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000251]

Jeff Ennis: I am delighted to have initiated this debate on support for brass bands and I am conscious of the fact that we have rather longer than usual, so I will be happy to take interventions.
	The stimulus for tonight's debate goes back to 12 November 2007 when the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport replied to a question that I had tabled asking how much funding the Arts Council of England had provided to opera, ballet and brass bands over the last five years. The Minister wrote to me stating that in the last five years opera had had 155,914,000, ballet had had some 70, 302,000, and brass bands had had 140,000.
	Using my primitive maths, I have estimated that for every 1 brass bands have had in the last five years from the Arts Council, opera has had over 1,100 and ballet has had more than 500. In addition, last year, the Arts Council for England gave brass bands just six grants totalling just over 20,000. That is out of a total budget of approximately a third of 1 billion a year.

Jeff Ennis: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I have focused on community brass bands, but in the second half of my speech I want to focus on the elite brass bands, and the very issue that my hon. Friend has highlighted. The fact is that we do not have the staple industries any more. The coal industry supported Grimethorpe Colliery band and the textile industry supported the Black Dyke Mills band. Those industries have collapsed and the elite brass bands need corporate sponsorship from the private sector rather than the public sector.
	To finish the point about co-operation between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Children, Schools and Families, I should add that excellent work will be going on in Barnsley schools over the next couple of years, but when pupils leave school, they will need a strong infrastructure of community music making. Brass bands offer a unique opportunity to provide that, and it should be invested in so that they are ready for the influx of players and a public who show a revitalised interest in amateur music making. That is very much an example of best practice, which I hope the Minister will focus on in her closing remarks.
	I now come to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor): we need to make progress on the situation of the elite brass bands. I would like to focus on bands such as the Grimethorpe colliery band, the Black Dyke Mills band and the Cory band. There are between 10 and a dozen top elite bands in the United Kingdom. They are not just some of the best brass bands in the world; they are the best brass bands in the world, and long may that continue. The main problem is the way in which the Arts Council of England funds its regularly funded organisationsthe RFOs. The Arts Council has just short of 900 RFOs, such as English National Opera, the Northern Ballet, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. We can all think of examples of the so-called elite RFOs. There are nearly 900 of them, and they are guaranteed, over the next three years, more than half the funding provided in the total Arts Council of England budget. Just over half a billion pounds is going to those organisations in the next three yearsbut there is not one elite brass band among those 900 organisations. The Arts Council has appointed 80 new RFOs and not one is a brass band. That is a major concern for me.
	My point about the elite brass bands is probably best articulated through a couple of examples that have been brought to my attention. When I first mentioned brass band funding in the autumn, I received an e-mail from John Myles, the chairman of the YBS band. It used to be called the Yorkshire Building Society band when it was sponsored by that organisation. The building society no longer sponsors it, so it goes under the name YBS band. It is one of the elite bands. The e-mail says:
	Dear Mr. Ennis,
	I write as Chairman of YBS Brass Band to congratulate you in bringing to the public notice the disparity in funding between certain aspects of the Arts and in particular the plight of Brass Bands in general. I saw your contribution to the Politics Show on my return from Italy where YBS Band performed by invitation at the Murano Music Festival.
	Since YBS lost its major sponsor some four years ago the band has not been able to secure any other funding. While funds are low our accounts are fortunately in the black but it is a hand-to-mouth existence with a reliance on concert revenue paying for competition entry, transport and accommodation. The objective is at least two fee earning engagements a month which off sets some competition expenditurethe next one being the National Brass Band Championships at the Royal Albert Hall on 20th October.
	which Grimethorpe won. The e-mail continues:
	With you raising the profile now may be a good time for me to reapply to the Arts Council England to determine if any funding may be available but before doing so I thought I would seek advice from you in the first instance. My attempt last year to secure funding from ACE following a meeting at their regional office in Dewsbury was unsuccessful so any information, contact name or advice which you can offer me would be appreciated.
	I received the follow-up e-mail about six weeks later:
	Hello Jeff,
	I had a meeting last week with Andrew Herbert at ACE in Dewsbury. Quite helpful but I think it's a case of us making an application for funding for something specific rather than there being a 'pot' for Brass Bands. However, when you learn that Opera North get 9 million+, Northern Ballet get 8 million+ and Jazz Yorkshire get 500k+ you'd think there would be room for manoeuvre.
	That is the position in which the elite brass bands find themselves.
	I have been more personally involved in the second example, which is of securing funding for my brass bandGrimethorpe Colliery band. We are all aware of the history of the elite brass bands, which were founded in the staple industries of the areas. It was a way for the textile owners or the pit owners to show respect for their communities. In those days, the local mine owner provided everythingfor example, the football and playing facilities. In Grimethorpe we also have an excellent first aid team; last year the Grimethorpe colliery first aid team reached the world championships in Australia. Everything surrounded the pit. It was exactly the same in the textile villages, such as where the Black Dyke Mills band is from. It showed the culture of the place and the respect that people had for their communities.
	In the old days, the players from the Grimethorpe Colliery band worked down the pit. I say that they worked down the pit: they were on the colliery books, but they probably did about two or three shifts a year. The rest of the time, they were crafting their expertise in music, and they were fantastic musicians.
	Times have changed, and only one member of Grimethorpe Colliery band still lives in Grimethorpe. Musicians come from all over the country for the privilege of playing in Grimethorpe Colliery band. One bandsman travels twice a week, every week, from Essex to rehearse in Grimethorpe because he feels proud and privileged to play for a such a band.
	After the pits closed, we originally got sponsorship from UK Coal, of about 150,000 a year, but that then dried up. We now get funding from Powerfuel, which is a small coal-operating company owned by Richard Budge.
	A few years ago, however, Grimethorpe went through a funding crisis, so I had to write to all the big companies and building societies in Yorkshire, including the Yorkshire building society, Halifax, the Barnsley building society, Asda, Morrisons and so on, to see whether I could get some money. I managed to get 15,000 from HBOSHalifax Bank of Scotlandand 5,000 from Asda. They were the only two big Yorkshire companies that responded.
	I pay tribute to the corporate social responsibility that those national and international organisations have shown to my community, but I should not have to be sending begging letters to big companies in Yorkshire for the best brass band in the world. The Arts Council has one third of a billion pounds a year to give out to musical companies and what have you, but Grimethorpe has not been able to tap into a penny of it. Grimethorpe got a small grant from the national lottery about 10 years ago, and I have already mentioned this year's experience, when the band applied to the Arts Council for expenses to travel to the Kent brass band festival, but was told that it was too late.
	I have been criticised in the past for making comparisons and trying to make this a class issuethat is, of working class against middle class, which it is notor the high arts against brass bands and all that. I have been criticised for comparing brass bands to orchestras and the ballet, so let me put that to one side. I think that brass bands can be compared to orchestras, so recently I tabled the following question, to which the Minister will know the response:
	To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much funding the (a) Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, (b) Hall Orchestra and (c) City of Birmingham Orchestra has received from Arts Council England in each of the last five years.[ Official Report, 16 July 2008; Vol. 479, c. 438W.]
	In the past five years, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra received 3.8 million, the Hall concerts society received 9.589 million and the City of Birmingham symphony orchestra received 9.6 million.
	Grimethorpe Colliery band and the Black Dyke Mills band both received zero pounds. That is my main point tonight. That is a national scandal. We have bands of the likes of Grimethorpe Colliery band, which played at the Proms last year, with the Black Dyke Mills band on different nights. They have played at Carnegie hall and the Sydney opera house; they are world famous. Indeed, only last week I was talking to an Australian member of the New South Wales assembly, Noreen Hay, who represents Wollongong. She was telling me what a great band she had in the Wollongong United Mine Workers band, and about how proud she was to have a band like that in New South Wales. When I told her that I was from Grimethorpefrom Brassed Off countryshe could not believe it. She was really pleased to meet me. It was fantastic.

David Drew: I shall be brief, partly because I took up the Minister's time last Monday, when we had a lovely debate on listed buildingsalthough I know that Adjournment debates on Mondays tend to get more time. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Jeff Ennis). I know how passionately he feels about this subject, and he has demonstrated that again tonight.
	Besides being the centre of the universe for listed buildings, Stroud also has some notoriety for brass bands. We have had a brass band festival for the past 40 years or more, set up by my dear, late lamented friend, Ossie Stephens. His comrade in arms, Bill Bruntsadly, he is no longer with us eitherwas the most amusing compre. He could bring tears to the eyes, even at the most dry-as-dust concert. We have many people who spend their time keeping the festival going. I should like to mention in passing Trevor Pickens, who is currently the honorary president of the Stroud brass band festival, and Ken Gracie, who is involved in many things.
	I hope that the Minister will reflect on the fact that these people are all volunteers. They have spent many hours bringing the best bands to Stroud over the years. They steward, they host, they collect the tickets and they sell the ice creams. They make the festival a wonderful occasion. Every month during the winter, we get bands to perform. Sometimes, we get world-famous bands such as Grimethorpealthough we have not had the Black Dyke band for a long timeand the Yorkshire colliery bands.
	We also have up-and-coming bands, and I have to declare a personal interest at this point. Until recently, my son Christopher and my daughter Esther played euphonium and tenor horn in the Nailsworth silver band. We also have the Chalford band, which is very good. My in-laws go all over the countryindeed, all over Europe. They are called Brian and Sheila Baker; when I see them on Thursday, I hope I shall get their commendation. What my hon. Friend says is absolutely true: such people go everywhere; they support these activities, and it is all made possible by volunteering.
	Let me make a couple of points that have not been brought out so far. First, there are also military bands. Stroud tends to get a military band at least once every other season. It is part of the comradeship of the military to have marching bands and performing bands, which I would not like to lose. Having younger players is important. I have talked to people who have been involved with the festival for a long time, and they are all getting older. They are worrying about where the new generation of players and activists, as well as the people who do the organising, are going to come from. That is why we need some pump-priming finance.
	We used to get quite good sponsorship at the local level, but it has begun to dry up, as the organisers keep going to the same people. As my hon. Friend rightly says, funding a band with new instruments is expensive, and the cost of travel is escalating. When these people involved in brass bands come to Stroud, they do not get back to their part of the north until the very early hours of the morning. That shows their huge dedication. World-class instrumentalists and conductors can be giving up their time, which is why we ask for some fairness and some recognition of the importance of these social institutions. We are talking about wonderful examples of the best of British culture. That is why brass bands are so important to all of us, even in the outposts. We have the band Flowers in Cheltenham, which is our claim to fame in the top 20; we always get one band there, but we cannot compete with the north. The north always comes to us.

Margaret Hodge: Actually, I do not agree, because I am a passionate supporter of music. I am very pleased that the Government have been able to fund a pilot project similar to El Systema in Venezuela. One of its orchestras also played at last year's Proms. The Government in Venezuela, at national, federal or regional level, fund music for street kids, paying for musical instruments for children who are poverty-stricken and have no opportunities of any kind. Children with very little support from their parents, very low aspirations, no money and no access to any material goods are expected to engage in four hours of solid practice every day, and have become so wonderfully proficient that they perform in international concerts such as the Proms. Indeed, theirs was probably one of the most successful performances that we heard at the Proms last year.